


Zik: The Cerulean Divorcee

by XenoCG



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Aged-Down Character(s), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Arranged Marriage, Deadly Six Wives AU, Execution, M/M, No Smut, Seriously no smut, Weddings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:33:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22674880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XenoCG/pseuds/XenoCG
Summary: [This AU is loosely based on the six wives on Henry VIII and SIX: the musical. With crackships.]In a universe far far away, the ARK empire rejoices at the recent wedding between its prince and a 400 year old zeti noble. However, when tragedy strikes the kingdom, said noble is arranged to marry the prince's brother for the sake of keeping the royal family together. Will Ivo and Zik RobotnikI dunno, it's only in the freaking title. But it's the road from a bleak wedding to that point that creates this tale, so strap in for a wild, wedding-drama-filled adventure.
Relationships: Dr. Eggman | Dr. Robotnik/Master Zik, Steve Eggman | Morpho/Master Zik
Kudos: 3





	Zik: The Cerulean Divorcee

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in an AU based in the 1500s
> 
> There are some significant changes you’ll find, mainly that there are no robots and certain characters’ ages. As you’ll see, they’re all portrayed a bit differently. This AU also isn’t bound to a specific continuity, there’s at least one character from every cartoon and a few of the comics even. Though I did my best to write the characters in a way that you don’t have to read their source material to understand them ;)

Countless vibrant flickies took to the pomegranate colored skies on the evening of Steve Robotnik and Zik of the Lost Hex Tropics, their wings flapping like delicate brushes to the enchanting ring of the church bells. Countless citizens of the ARK Empire were gathered for the event. Crowds of noble humans and mobians dressed in their finest attire all gazed at the wedding arch from the right while a hundred zeti who could afford the journey down from their glorified moon gazed at the foreign glass panes and chandeliers in awe whilst muttering amongst themselves in their native tongue. The less fortunate citizens crowded around the outside, hoping to catch a glimpse of the handsome prince and his exotic zeti royalty.

The star of the event himself patiently stood before the altar dressed in all velvety navy blue, occasionally breaking his confident stance to straighten his elegant mustache. The smooth blonde hairs decorating his head reflected the candlelight in a unique way that made him seem to glow with his smile. The lenses of his blue specs were far too dark to see through them, but the position of his blank brows suggested his eyes were beaming as well.

Beside Steve was his brother, Ivo Robotnik, who more than often just went by the name “Eggman” which many contradictory stories told throughout the empire attempted to explain. The two bore a heavy resemblance to each other, so heavy in fact that they were often mistaken for twins. The only major differences were that Eggman’s hair color sat dead center on the fence between flaming orange and milk chocolate brown.

That was, at least, their surface-level differences. In reality, their backgrounds couldn’t be further apart from each other. Before the birth of Ivo, his parents struggled heavily to have a child for years. So when one of their servants found an unknown gargoyle baby that had been causing trouble in the pantry, the couple chose to take him in as a son rather than follow the standard of slaying gargoyles that mysteriously came to life. Conveniently, the baby had the unique ability to morph its appearance to any creature it wanted, so he was trained from a young age to always resemble a human baby. The nametag strapped to his leg alluded to this feature with the title of “Morpho,” but that name would be suspicious to anyone who wasn’t a monster or mimic octopus, so he was given the name “Steven” instead. He was presented to the kingdom as a newborn heir to the throne and his secret stayed between him, his family, and the two servants that found him since day one.

The whole trouble, of course, turned out to be completely pointless since the mother found out about her pregnancy a few months later. But Steve’s birth had already been set in history, every day that passed by only solidified the family’s lies further. So they continued, Steve was the heir to the throne while true royal blood human Ivo ended up the spare in his shadows. Ironically, despite being the one in the spotlight, Steve always had to change his appearance to be similar to Ivo, resulting in their striking resemblance to each other.

Their parents, unfortunately, succumbed to disease when the two were both still young boys. Tragedy swept the empire but that ordeal turned out not to be that big of a deal thanks to the boys’ Emperor Gerald Robotnik still being alive and well in power. But Gerald’s empirical duties, sickly granddaughter Maria, and adoptive hedgehog son Shadow already took up every inch of his attention. So the two boys were given a surrogate mother in the form of a wooden statue consisting of many cogs and joints, then brought to life by a dash of magic by Gerald. He introduced the birch figure as simply “Mombot.”

Back at the grand wedding, Gerald, Maria, Shadow, and Mombot (now sporting a more dynamic, polished appearance than the date of her creation) all sat in the left front row. The two women were overwhelmed by happiness while Gerald simply gave a kind smile and Shadow pretended to not care about the events unfolding.

Six even pairs of zeti and human groomsmen and women marched down the aisle to join the princes at the front, followed by a short, bird-nosed boy that Steve had adopted just a year prior named Snively serving as the ring bearer. A tiny sky blue zeti entered close behind, spreading blue flowers all over the floor. Then, with the perfectly timed ring of the bell and a music cue from the band, the other groom marched in.

The tall, noble, 400-year-old zeti was truly a spectacle. His thin bronze mustache and goatee reached down to compliment the edges of his navy  _ haori.  _ The fiance of the traditionally human prince wearing a kimono in a nonzeti wedding was questionable to many, but for whatever reason Steve had insisted Zik use elements of his own culture for the ceremony as he pleased. Regardless, he looked dashing. On his arm was a scarlet zeti apprentice whose large horns made him stand just a tad taller than his master. He didn’t wear a kimono himself, but he had a single  _ haori  _ jacket on him just to look more formal.

The music halted once more the minute Zik reached the altar and his escort let him go. He faced Steve with his typical stern look, but now that seriousness was eased just a little with a slight smile. Steve grinned back at him in pure ecstasy.

“What happened to his father?” Eggman muttered to his brother. “And who's that with him?”

“ His dad’s still ill,” Steve whispered back. “That’s one of his students, Zavik I think?”

“Actually his name is Zav- _ ock, _ ” Zik corrected lightheartedly. “You really should be more respectful of your student-in-laws.”

“Oh be quiet dude, we’re not even married yet.”

“Then let’s both be quiet and let it happen, honey.”

  
  
  


The rest of the ceremony commenced just as expected. Rings were exchanged, the royals’ lips met to applause, a plentiful feast was held, the dance floor was swept by a hyped, lovesick crowd, a bouquet of alien flowers was tossed and swiftly caught by the prince’s brother, and the whole event was accompanied by an open bar teeming with drunken guests. Tears were shed, many laughs were had, and it was difficult to find a guest that wasn’t smiling to some degree.

It was absolute bliss, pure happiness like the kingdom hadn’t felt since Steve’s own “birth.” The kingdom’s bright future seemed to be closer than ever.

So, of course, everything had to spiral into hell after that.

It all started with the untimely murder of Maria Robotnik. The fiasco began when Shadow’s real father, a hideous alien hivemind leader by the name of Black Doom, revealed himself to the empire. While his army waged war on the ARK, he snuck Shadow out repeatedly and attempted to get him to backstab his adoptive family. Shadow, of course, refused to do such a thing, his loyalties always stayed with the Robotniks then, but to the onlooking guards he too heavily resembled a traitor. They attempted to inform Emperor Gerald, but he didn’t believe a word that came from their mouths and threatened to fire them if they came back with any more slander. That, of course, didn’t stop the royal guard from still believing what had been firmly planted in their minds. One of them was so determined to prove the truth that he grabbed his weapons one night and planned to kill Shadow as his trophy.

That same night, Shadow and Maria decided to take a long walk through the empire. Shadow needed it too much for words. The pressure from his father and the suspicious guards had piled a crippling load of stress on him. If he didn’t have Maria to vent to he was sure he would’ve cracked and shattered under the weight of it all.

The pair had reached an abandoned, cold alley, lit by a single dim lantern which gently shone against Maria’s golden hair.

“Shadow, I’m not sure if it’s safe for us to be here,” she whispered.

“It’s isolated and that’s safer than anything at this point,” the hedgehog replied.

“Yeah, when did darkness stop us before anyway?”

Shadow and Maria sat right beside each other under that lone lantern. The coolness in the air had risen so much that the wind seemed to stab like blunt knives against their skin. Chills never bothered Shadow, but Maria in her light, airy dress found refuge in Shadow’s warm quills. She held him close, petting his quills with her cold, dainty hands. The hedgehog quivered at first but slowly hugged her back, burying his face in her dress.

“Now that we’re truly alone,” he said quietly, “can I confess something?”

From a blind spot at the other end of the alley, the royal guard prepared his sword.

“Yes, I promise I’ll tell nobody if you need,” Maria gently replied.

“I’m scared.”

“AS YOU SHOULD BE!” the guard yelled as he rushed towards the pair.

Shadow just barely got time to flinch before Maria suddenly lunged out in front of him.

“SHADOW LOOK OUT-”

And just like that, the sword impaled Maria. The guardsman immediately freaked out and pulled the sword back, causing Maria’s body to fall limp to the ground like the children’s dolls she always resembled.

“MARIA!” Shadow screamed as loud as he could.

The guard stood back, shaking in terror as he watched Shadow collapse to his knees beside her. He cradled her body in his gloves, trying in vain to brush the blood off her dress. Tears spilled down his face at an uncontrollable rate.

“Maria, p-please, be okay, please just wake up and…”

Her corpse didn’t respond. Shadow choked with too many tears to plead anything more.

The guardsman knew he had to make a break for it. He knew he just fucked up  _ everything _ . His reputation, his career, his relationships, all of it. It was all fucked. He never intended on slaying Maria, he was aiming for Shadow. But his madman rush to murder the hedgehog made him act too fast to see her coming. He just murdered the most precious, innocent princess in the royal family, the absolute jewel of her grandfather’s eye, the one girl who the emperor cherished the most. He had to run, but he knew too well how impulsive and irrational Gerald was in grief. No matter how far he ran, he was never going to be able to escape this situation and the emperor’s wrath.

When he thought about it, the only witness of the crime was Shadow, who he planned on taking out anyway. If he could just take out the hedgehog, he could say Shadow was the one who killed Maria and praised for avenging her. Then he’d be the highest-ranking guard for doing something so noble for the emperor’s sweet granddaughter and even more aggressive war could be waged against Black Doom’s army. It was the perfect recipe to fix his future.

The guard ran out from the side of the alley he entered and attempted to circle to the other so he could catch the hedgehog off guard. Unfortunately, Shadow must’ve heard these steps and took them as him trying to run from the crime, because the next thing he knew Shadow was breathing down his neck.

“YOU’RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE YOU SICK BASTARD!” he yelled, grabbing the guard’s sword and pointing it towards his scruffy neck. “I’d send you to hell where you belong, but the emperor’s going to do much worse than I EVER could when he finds out about what you’ve done!”

  
  
  


And worse is what he did; the guard was publicly tortured and executed for the murder of Maria Robotnik. His name was immortalized in the square built just for executing him: Lawrence Garner’s square, or just the Garner square for short. The remote square had his body permanently tied to the tree so that he could forever be shamed by the empire for his atrocious crime.

Gerald wasn’t just completely furious from this tragedy, he went insane with grief. He fired every single guard and planned on replacing them with more animated golems akin to mombot, but more destructive. So the war with Black Doom’s black arms was put on hold, but that didn’t stop Shadow from attempting to kill the leader himself anyway. Nobody knew exactly what happened in that event, but it couldn’t have been well since Shadow went missing and Black Doom was seen again live the next day.

It wasn’t just Maria’s closest Robotniks that were affected, however. Every Robotnik was told to wear nothing but black for the rest of his reign. If they were caught with even a hint of color, their heads would be had at Garner square. Zik especially was offended by the notion, but Steve was able to convince him to dye half his vibrant wardrobe pitch black. Then halfway through the week of Maria’s funeral, Steve showed up to the castle with a horrible limp. He insisted to everyone he was fine, then shocked the whole empire when he suddenly passed out halfway through Ivo giving his speech.

Zik single-handedly was tasked with looking after Steve in private. Ivo and Gerald hoped in vain that the zeti had some sort of spells or medicine in their culture that could cure whatever Steve had. Then all hope was thrown out the window when Steve was diagnosed with “the stiffening,” a terminal condition that affected only gargoyles and caused them to revert to inanimate statues. Six days after the prince was taken in, Zik came out and informed everyone that Steve just passed in his arms. His permanent statue form would serve as his grave marker, but of course, the empire still couldn’t know his true form. The news got out that Steve died from the sweating sickness and Zik was credited for making the statue to honor his husband.

At that point, the once large Robotnik family was just reduced to Ivo, Snively, Gerald, and sort of Zik. Gerald soon caught tuberculosis and went on several day-long rants in his deathbed about how ungrateful his human citizens were. On his final day of life, to keep his family unified after his death, he declared that Snively would be fully adopted by Zik and Ivo, who would be married next month whether they liked it or not.


End file.
